6th Edition of World Nursing Science Conference 2026

Abstract

Pain management and palliative care remain central to nursing’s ethical mandate: the relief of suffering. In performance-driven healthcare systems, symptom control is a moral obligation and a measurable quality outcome. This presentation examines the clinical, ethical, and leadership imperatives of integrating evidence-based pain management within palliative care across acute, community, and hospice settings.Uncontrolled pain compromises physiologic stability, psychological well-being, family dynamics, length of stay, and readmission rates. Despite advances in multimodal therapies, barriers persist, including inconsistent pain assessment, opioid stewardship concerns, regulatory pressures, and delayed palliative referrals. Early palliative integration provides a structured interdisciplinary framework to address total pain, physical, emotional, spiritual, and social, while aligning care with patient goals.

This session highlights nurse-led quality improvement strategies that strengthen symptom management outcomes. Using Plan–Do–Study–Act cycles, standardized pain reassessment protocols, and interdisciplinary rounding models, nurses can improve time-to-analgesia, increase compliance with documented pain reassessment within one hour of intervention, reduce avoidable emergency utilization, and enhance patient-reported symptom control. Key metrics include time from admission to palliative consult, opioid stewardship adherence, 30-day readmissions for uncontrolled symptoms, hospital length-of-stay optimization, ICU utilization in the last 30 days of life, and patient and family satisfaction scores.

Participants will leave with practical frameworks to embed palliative care within quality and safety dashboards. Reframing pain management as a clinical competency and a nurse advocacy responsibility strengthens patient safety, reduces moral distress, improves cost stewardship, and positions palliative excellence as a strategic benchmark for value-based care.